[wizzo227]

Later this month Ofgem will be asking about "demand flexibility services". From anyone who did (or didn't for a reason) do the EoN flex thing last winter, are there any opinions which you'd want sending to Ofgem when the greysuits have a really boring meeting about how to get that right ?

I'll be arguing that every electric vehicle recharge point should have a mandatory interruptor, and unless it has confirmed todays' notification (usually times of spare wind power) be by default OFF between 6pm and 9pm to avoid the usual well-known evening peak when everyone else wants to cook dinner and watch telly.

My 24" TV uses 50 Watts. A Tesla superfast charger adds up to 172 miles of range in 15 minutes. Call that about 60kWh in 15 minutes; 240 kW; or about 4800 small televisions like mine. In times of scarcity, where would you want the power to go ?
Some greysuits argue that imports mean that we can have both. I don't like that because an accounting fiddle with carbon offset certificates results in the differential extra electricity imported often originating in the dirtiest fossil power stations.

So build more windmills and be prepared to interrupt the greedier nonessential uses are my take on this.

If any member of the public wants anything at all said, even if that is opposite to my opinion, please write here whatever you want quoted.

[DebF_EONNext]

@wizzo227 that's an interesting take on adding interrupters at charging stations how do you foresee this helping in the future?

[wizzo227]

A country with plenty of renewables, connected to plenty of interruptible loads such as new interruptibe vehicle recharge set to "cheaper" is capable of using the prompt-response gas-fired generation less often, hence operating with adequate margins for security of supply for the essential uninteruptibles such as traffic lights and for smaller uninterruptible loads such as televisions, with much reduced carbon emissions by comparison to keeping the expensive gas burning as much as it did last year. It can be left still possible but extra expensive for those in a hurry who don't want their vehicle recharge to take longer in order to help to balance demand of electricity, to pay the usual extra for "faster" above those who chose to park at an interruptible charger set to "cheaper".

If given plentiful renewables, that in combination with interruptible loads such as electric vehical recharge, should result in lower electricity prices for everyone, and availability of lower prices for slower electric vehicle recharge.

Importing less gas for backup power generation ought to have been planned in for a long time now, but it seems not to have been; almost the contrary. An electricity utility defining a most sensible way to distribute the best price-modifier around each substation node for all the recharge points in its region to look up is in my opinion better than depending on only the national grid frequency. While your interruptible loads or car recharge are on the same side of a pylons bottleneck such as Aberdeen to Dumfermline as the cause of a national shortage of electricity for a few seconds, as would histrically have required burning gas to promptly generate extra, the regional server for NE Scotland asks "faster-cheaper" EV recharge to be rather sensitive to national grid frequency, allowing recharge points to start up or interrupt as fast as would expensive dedicated battery units. Another car recharge point not near to the cause of this national Frequency event can see a number in its region which makes it only offer super cheap electricity if there is a surplus in its own region; a surplus from gusty renewables in NE Scotland could be too far away.

Making wibbleometer-equipped "smart" EV recharge points which look first to their regional server every minute for the sensitivity number and then look at local V frequency to get decision signals inside 0.1 seconds has the combination of capability of fast response when and where the central electricity transmission authorities want that, without having fast-and-nasty response everywhere as may have been to blame for the blackout in Spain and Portugal.

As written, this looks like too many assertions. To properly simulate whether or not this resilient renewable network is possible has been delayed for 40+ years by the prompt-response fossil power stations and their owners being quite proprietal with their data. That is (I say) because we could run the national grid in a secure and reliable manner without their dirty power stations.

[geoffers]

Originally Posted by wizzo227

I'll be arguing that every electric vehicle recharge point should have a mandatory interruptor, and unless it has confirmed todays' notification (usually times of spare wind power) be by default OFF between 6pm and 9pm to avoid the usual well-known evening peak when everyone else wants to cook dinner and watch telly..

@wizzo227 - although there's no way I'm up to speed on the minuteai of this, from research I've done recently (I'm planning a future EVSE) hopefully this may already be in hand

• All new charging points now have to have "smart" functionality built into them
• and they also have CT-clamps wired to the live meter-tail
  
  • so this allows their load to be adjusted locally(in-house) based on the whole household's load/usage so you don't trip the houshold's main fuse/breaker
  • this presumably will also allow the DNO(?) to control demand per supply/substation to prevent a local area overload
  • and maybe allow them extend this to the whole grid at key times

[wizzo227]

Originally Posted by geoffers

will also allow the DNO(?) to control

I also think that the DNO's ought to have got that right. Sadly they didn't. From deflections of enquiries to one DNO around here, their behaviour seems consistent with their finance people having promised to shareholders never to spend money on upgrades or information availability which might help or enable others. Whilst a DNO would have been my first choice of sensible place for a proposed street status server which tells your house smart things how generous to be, they still hoard their 20th century diagrams and records which they regard as a private asset. It got so awkward that a big solar project around here is building out 20+ miles of their own distribution network and substations because the existing DNO won't sort out the existing substations and use existing cabling for reversed power flow.

To The Ideal smart home controller, house solar generating surplus or limits seen on the CT clamp are one major input needed to make the right decisions. National F is another. Regional substations and street substations ought to be able, for subscribed households, to publish every few minutes a few numbers including a price and forecast, which inform your smart house of enough to work out from your requests calender the best times to be net using power. That won't infuence most households unless accompanied by lower prices in moments when you should be using more. I'd give your house an extra meter through which "smart interruptible" appliances should be connected, if you wanted them opted in to the cheaper price than your smaller and pre-smart circuits continue to use.

[rwh202]

I'm not quite so pessimistic - we are probably most of the way there.

With regards to superchargers - they are already throttled by the grid and the first to be shed. If you ever use one, it will often not reach rated power, displaying a 'constrained by grid' message.

Home charging will normally be done overnight in a cheap block anyway. Tariffs like IO and Next Drive Smart hand over the charging to suppliers who pick the best times. All smart EVSEs have the ability to be controlled and constrained by the grid, although I don't know whether it's been implemented nor tested!
(edited to add - just got an email from my EVSE supplier with their take on this - https://pod-point.com/smart-charging - so they can dynamically control my charging to match the grid)

For home control, there are already tariffs like Agile where you get the forecast and schedule loads accordingly with smart integrations. Admittedly it's at the regional level, not street level.
No need for an extra meter. The old way has been to have an essentials and non-essential distribution board. Usually in the case where a generator or battery storage is in place, so only essentials are powered in case of grid loss. Now, I'd like to see the individual loads to have the smarts.
The ability to control individual loads was designed into the HAN, but technology and the prevalence of smart devices, the IoT etc. has advanced from what was envisioned 15 years ago when they started the roll out, so might be a backward step. Instead, a bridge between the HAN and home WLAN could provide the needed link (or offer an internet based alternative).
That way, all discretionary consumers (dishwashers, washing machines, heaters, heat pumps and to an extent fridges and freezers etc.) could react to grid signals.

Perhaps the biggest misstep has been not mandating such smarts from an earlier point. Admittedly there will always be a chicken and egg situation, but even if all new appliances from the last 5 years were integrated, it wouldn't be long before the majority were replaced with the required capabilities.